Carnival Buzz

Here's a question that showed up in our mail box today:

Just wondered if you had a way of seeing which carnival had the longest scheduled set of hosts...Carnival of the Green is now booking into 2007!!! Is anyone booked up further than that in advance?

With a little help from the database guru, we found out that quite a few blog carnivals have scheduled editions way out there:

• Carnival of Christmas
• Carnival of Personal Finance
• Carnival of Bent Attractions
• Carnival of the Green
• Carnival of the Godless
• Does My Blog Look Good in This?
• Skeptics Circle
• Carnival of Feminists
• The Big Fat Carnival

With the new InstaCarnival function (see this recent post), it's a good idea to keep at least one future edition scheduled ... even if you change the schedule.

Why? Well, currently the great new InstaCarnival feature only shows you all the submissions for the next scheduled edition when there actually is a next edition scheduled.

We asked the database guru why. He said that, like gravity, it's just the way the world works right now.

So, thanks for the question. Feel free to send in other questions and we'll check with the database guru for further insights into the world of blog carnivals.

Elizabeth over at How to Make Internet Money has posted about the experience of a first time blog carnivalier.

For the last two weeks, I have been involved in hosting and getting others to participate in a blog carnival. It has been kinda like being on a roller coaster. I jumped in with my eyes closed and my hands raised up to the sky in a sense, because I really had no idea what being a part of a blog carnival entailed.

It's a fun post and it makes us realize that Blog Carnival needs to make things even simpler!

So, we're working on some short videos that should make the whole blog carnival idea simpler to learn. Keep blogging, and stay tuned!

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Read more from this blogger: Blogging - What's in it for Me?

The InstaCarnival beta has started, somewhat surreptitiously. Why should you care? If you host blog carnivals, InstaCarnival will save you lots and lots of time.

The InstaCarnival collects all the submissions you receive for a carnival edition and automagically turns them into a blog carnival. Of course, you'll want to spend time editing the pedestrian carnival edition created by InstaCarnival to turn it into a riveting, electrifying read. But you can start editing straight away.

In fact, for the HTML-challenged amongst us, you also will find the InstaCarnival editor which allows you to edit the new carnival edition in plain English.

How do you use the InstaCarnival? If you host blog carnivals, you probably get email from Blog Carnival. About a day before an edition is scheduled, we email you a tickler. In that email, you'll receive a handy link to the InstaCarnival.

As we get feedback on the InstaCarnival and push it through the beta birth canal, we'll make it more generally available.

UPDATE! We've made it much easier to access InstaCarnival.

If you are the carnival organizer, simply log in and select "List my carnivals". If there are any submissions in the queue, you'll see a little number in parenthesis next to the "Add" button on the right. The number tells you how many submissions are queued. Selecting the number will take you to the InstaCarnival page.

If you are an edition host and not the organizer, you still have to wait for the mail. Sorry about that, but we're working on it. For now, edition hosts will have to ask the carnival organizer to cut and paste the InstaCarnival HTML into a mail message to the edition host.

The good folks at Blawg Review wanted to let you know that they have plenty of old issues. And you can find all of them at the link below.

Blawg Review is a peer-reviewed blog carnival. Unlike most other blog carnivals, which rely only on submissions of bloggers' posts, Blawg Review is the host's presentation of some of the best law-related posts each week from various sources, including those recommended by readers.

We think Blawg Review is a great example of professionals (well, mostly) putting together a useful compendium of reviewed posts in a way that helps practioners. Enjoy!

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Read more from this blogger: Blawg Review: We've Got Issues

Derek has posted the next fine edition of the New Carnival Showcase. It's a great read!